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How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters

 
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 57472949
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07/07/2014 03:01 AM
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How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
My high tunnel aquaponic garden was previously featured on C2C back in 2011 shortly after I had built it: [link to www.coasttocoastam.com]

I'm writing to share an update because my project has expanded to such a degree--and in such strange directions--that I think a lot of you will be fascinated by what I'm doing and will hopefully be inspired to create your own systems.

I now not only grow huge amounts of blue tilapia (more than enough to feed my family), I successfully grow lots of edible bananas, figs, and other tropical crops here in Kansas...using almost no electricity or complex technology.

My main goal has been to figure out how to grow healthy 'real' food year-round in a state with harsh winters. My first system, the one featured on C2C, accomplished this via what I call high tunnel aquaponics. Here is a brief pictorial tour showing how that system progressed from 'boring' vegetables into a rainforest burgeoning with bananas and papayas: [link to www.greenfingardens.com] . That system satisfied my goal fairly well and was fairly inexpensive ($2,500 to build myself), but it was more complicated than most folks would want to manage, so I tried to come up with a better system that more people could adopt.

My second year-round food production system is far simpler and even more productive: a well insulated semi-pit tunnel greenhouse that is very cheap ($1,500 to build myself), extremely robust (withstanding winds in the 70-80 mph range on a half-dozen occasions), easy to manage, and, most important, amazingly productive. Even without heating, the lowest the temperature got in there this past winter was 39F...despite three separate polar vortexes that plunged our outdoor air temps to -10F. That allows me to not only grow enough vegetables over the winter to feed a small army (especially stuff like lettuce, spinach, beets, and even sweet potatoes), but to also grow fun tropical and semi-tropical crops like bananas and figs. Sure the bananas stop growing for a few months and die back a bit in the dead of winter, but they come roaring back in the spring because it just doesn't get cold enough to do substantial damage to them. What's more, this makes for a perfect environment for safely raising native fish like catfish year-round. The only power this system really needs is a measly 40 watts to power a small inflation fan that inflates the space between the two layers of greenhouse plastic. This inflation not only creates an extremely effective layer of insulation, it provides rigidity to the plastic, causing wind to slide over it rather than whip and shred it. Here's a pictorial tour that shows the construction and the various crops I've grown in there: [link to www.greenfingardens.com]

These are just simple test systems, but they have been amazingly productive. Hopefully they'll inspire other folks to create their own such systems...or even better systems!

My Dad is Type 2 diabetic, and I started this project primarily as a means to help keep him healthy if he were unable to get his meds for an extended period. It then quickly expanded into a search for a good answer to the question, "How can we keep everyone well-fed regardless of circumstances, whether it's war, pandemics, economic collapse, power grid failure, EMP's, shipping breakdowns, solar flares, peak oil, radical climate change, nuclear meltdowns, etc?" I don't know when or if most of those things will occur, but I sincerely believe that there are simple--and easily scalable--methods for safeguarding ourselves against them, at least from a food-production standpoint. If people lose access to food, society will disintegrate; but if we can all remain well-fed in a calamity, that gives us a good chance at not just surviving it, but thriving in spite of it.

That's why my big-picture goal is to create arrays of decent sized (~10 acre) highly intensive off-grid greenhouse food production facilities, arranged in satellite fashion around communities, that can provide a complete and exceptionally healthy diet that is entirely produced within a few miles of where it is eaten. Virtually anything can be grown in this manner by tailoring the design of each greenhouse to naturally provide the specific environmental needs of whatever is being grown in it. This style of hyperlocalized food production would not only allow folks to have direct and constant access to healthier food (no need for GMO's in our pampered greenhouse environments, for example), we'd get far tastier food, since we'd grow the best tasting varieties rather than the best shipping varieties, and we'd pick them when they're ripe rather than when they'd ship the best.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Hope it can be helpful to some of you.
Abi ~

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07/07/2014 03:03 AM

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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
bump
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whiteangel
also known at WA

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07/07/2014 03:11 AM

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:whiteangelbump:
Isaiah 5:20 KJV
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
Thread: Being Prepared - Updated Basic Food List On Page One
Anonymous Coward
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07/07/2014 03:26 AM
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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
So the floor is gravel and the water is pumped through the floor? Id like to see how you set up the floor plumbing or how exactly you are watering.
Anonymous Coward
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07/07/2014 03:30 AM
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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
And here I am, the sucker. Just bought 40 dollars worth of pesticide infested produce today. Keep up the good work. I'd love to spend a summer detox season at your place!
Anonymous Coward (OP)
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07/07/2014 03:40 AM
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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
So the floor is gravel and the water is pumped through the floor? Id like to see how you set up the floor plumbing or how exactly you are watering.
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 58111003

Yes, the floor is one big gravel filter. It's sort of like a sandbox (but with gravel) in that there isn't any formal structure, just a big wide hole filled with gravel. It's about 10" deep (15' long and 11' wide).

The way it's configured now (it used to be a little different), I pump water out of the fish tank into the gravel growbed and it follows a little stream (just a path I scooped out) about halfway around the perimeter. The water then runs into a dead end and has to ooze through the rocks until it gravity-feeds back into the fish tank.
Anonymous Coward
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07/07/2014 04:48 AM
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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
really cool, lovely job
Anonymous Coward
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07/07/2014 04:51 AM
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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
My high tunnel aquaponic garden was previously featured on C2C back in 2011 shortly after I had built it: [link to www.coasttocoastam.com]

My Dad is Type 2 diabetic, and I started this project primarily as a means to help keep him healthy if he were unable to get his meds for an extended period.
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 57472949


Very awesome, you're a wonderful son.
Anonymous Coward
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07/07/2014 04:54 AM
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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
You could have a really big one and incorporate goats. That'd be great in a modified quonset.
Anonymous Coward
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07/07/2014 04:54 AM
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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
You're a great man, by the way.
Anonymous Coward
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07/07/2014 05:06 AM
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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
Excellent work

:greenkarma:
Azadok61

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07/07/2014 06:25 AM
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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
Outstanding job , does the green house get sun all day long ?
Anonymous Coward
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China
07/07/2014 06:29 AM
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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
greenhouse
CMcC

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07/07/2014 06:34 AM

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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
Very informative...a wealth of info here, thank you for sharing this.

What the deal with Romain lettuce, does that adapt well?

Last Edited by CMcC on 07/07/2014 06:36 AM
Fear God and Dread Nought.
Lil Sis

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07/07/2014 08:24 AM
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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
Very interesting! What great work, thank you for taking time to share it with everybody. You inspire me to try aquaculure myself.

I live in the northern part of the country too, and have successfully gsrdened year round, using a double wall greenhouse, deep straw mulch and lights for heat. This setup kept cool weather veggies happy in single digit temps outside.

I have tried 2 greenhouses, one we built ourselves in a quanset style, greenhouse plastic, with a plywood frame inside to give strength, for the lights and to staple the inside plastic wall to. It was pretty crude, but very effective. Second one we bought, and it has been impossible to keep it functioning as well as the first. Roof too high, for starters. Needs serious work to get it right.

Root crops, brocolli and chard do well in this setup.

Would like to set up aquaculture, but too many irons in the fire now. If we set up aquaculture, it would be under hoops, as in our first greenhouse design. Much easier to heat with the lower ceiling and no roof peak to catch to heat so far from the plants.
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anon. coward
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07/07/2014 09:02 AM
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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
Coming soon to a future near you. Government drones find your greenhouse and obliterate it. Then, a farm is paved over across the road with a brand-new Super Walmart. So, don't worry. 1500 dollars can buy a lot of food at government approved institutions.
Anonymous Coward
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07/07/2014 09:14 AM
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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
What a great idea! And for now, at least, I don't think we can be taxed on this type of structure. Here in Massachusetts any shed, coop, or greenhouse 10x12' or over is taxed.

I was wondering, though - we have a real problem with mildews and mold here. Do you need a dry location for this to work? Fans?

(Flooding here, too, - Our friend, Arthur just dumped 10 inches on us - but that's only once or twice a year.)
queenbee
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07/07/2014 09:25 AM
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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
i knew a family in mass with a fig tree in a green house. this reminds me a bit of "solviva" by anna edey

congrats, great job!
queenbee
User ID: 1562977
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07/07/2014 09:27 AM
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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
i'm in mass and the winds from the storm the day BEFORE arthur destroyed my neighbor's green house. (his was plastic)

i've seen so many destroyed green houses in mass.

especially glass ones.

but i don't see why kansas wouldn't be just as stormy or stormier.

not much you can do about a micro burst, i think one came through here.
Anonymous Coward
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07/07/2014 10:40 AM
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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
I wish someone would design an easy to assemble, durable, expandable, upgradable, cheap greenhouse.

something that incorporates solar and can be
modified to be geo thermal

with vertical farming in mind

Like those car ports for instance
could be sand filled pvc pipe and snap on panels with high R value and differing thickness depending on the region.
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 56144605
United States
07/07/2014 10:43 AM
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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
My high tunnel aquaponic garden was previously featured on C2C back in 2011 shortly after I had built it: [link to www.coasttocoastam.com]

I'm writing to share an update because my project has expanded to such a degree--and in such strange directions--that I think a lot of you will be fascinated by what I'm doing and will hopefully be inspired to create your own systems.

I now not only grow huge amounts of blue tilapia (more than enough to feed my family), I successfully grow lots of edible bananas, figs, and other tropical crops here in Kansas...using almost no electricity or complex technology.

My main goal has been to figure out how to grow healthy 'real' food year-round in a state with harsh winters. My first system, the one featured on C2C, accomplished this via what I call high tunnel aquaponics. Here is a brief pictorial tour showing how that system progressed from 'boring' vegetables into a rainforest burgeoning with bananas and papayas: [link to www.greenfingardens.com] . That system satisfied my goal fairly well and was fairly inexpensive ($2,500 to build myself), but it was more complicated than most folks would want to manage, so I tried to come up with a better system that more people could adopt.

My second year-round food production system is far simpler and even more productive: a well insulated semi-pit tunnel greenhouse that is very cheap ($1,500 to build myself), extremely robust (withstanding winds in the 70-80 mph range on a half-dozen occasions), easy to manage, and, most important, amazingly productive. Even without heating, the lowest the temperature got in there this past winter was 39F...despite three separate polar vortexes that plunged our outdoor air temps to -10F. That allows me to not only grow enough vegetables over the winter to feed a small army (especially stuff like lettuce, spinach, beets, and even sweet potatoes), but to also grow fun tropical and semi-tropical crops like bananas and figs. Sure the bananas stop growing for a few months and die back a bit in the dead of winter, but they come roaring back in the spring because it just doesn't get cold enough to do substantial damage to them. What's more, this makes for a perfect environment for safely raising native fish like catfish year-round. The only power this system really needs is a measly 40 watts to power a small inflation fan that inflates the space between the two layers of greenhouse plastic. This inflation not only creates an extremely effective layer of insulation, it provides rigidity to the plastic, causing wind to slide over it rather than whip and shred it. Here's a pictorial tour that shows the construction and the various crops I've grown in there: [link to www.greenfingardens.com]

These are just simple test systems, but they have been amazingly productive. Hopefully they'll inspire other folks to create their own such systems...or even better systems!

My Dad is Type 2 diabetic, and I started this project primarily as a means to help keep him healthy if he were unable to get his meds for an extended period. It then quickly expanded into a search for a good answer to the question, "How can we keep everyone well-fed regardless of circumstances, whether it's war, pandemics, economic collapse, power grid failure, EMP's, shipping breakdowns, solar flares, peak oil, radical climate change, nuclear meltdowns, etc?" I don't know when or if most of those things will occur, but I sincerely believe that there are simple--and easily scalable--methods for safeguarding ourselves against them, at least from a food-production standpoint. If people lose access to food, society will disintegrate; but if we can all remain well-fed in a calamity, that gives us a good chance at not just surviving it, but thriving in spite of it.

That's why my big-picture goal is to create arrays of decent sized (~10 acre) highly intensive off-grid greenhouse food production facilities, arranged in satellite fashion around communities, that can provide a complete and exceptionally healthy diet that is entirely produced within a few miles of where it is eaten. Virtually anything can be grown in this manner by tailoring the design of each greenhouse to naturally provide the specific environmental needs of whatever is being grown in it. This style of hyperlocalized food production would not only allow folks to have direct and constant access to healthier food (no need for GMO's in our pampered greenhouse environments, for example), we'd get far tastier food, since we'd grow the best tasting varieties rather than the best shipping varieties, and we'd pick them when they're ripe rather than when they'd ship the best.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Hope it can be helpful to some of you.
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 57472949


can you contact "mother earth news"?
i would like them to put this story in their magazine
the whole world needs to see this
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 56144605
United States
07/07/2014 10:44 AM
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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
I wish someone would design an easy to assemble, durable, expandable, upgradable, cheap greenhouse.

something that incorporates solar and can be
modified to be geo thermal

with vertical farming in mind

Like those car ports for instance
could be sand filled pvc pipe and snap on panels with high R value and differing thickness depending on the region.
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 58363614


go to a crowd funding site
tell them your vision
and then ask for volunteers
who are knowlegable in these techniques
when you create a prototype
you can be crowdfunded to create and sell it
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 56144605
United States
07/07/2014 10:46 AM
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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
i'm in mass and the winds from the storm the day BEFORE arthur destroyed my neighbor's green house. (his was plastic)

i've seen so many destroyed green houses in mass.

especially glass ones.

but i don't see why kansas wouldn't be just as stormy or stormier.

not much you can do about a micro burst, i think one came through here.
 Quoting: queenbee 1562977


i wonder if underground/ glass roof
greenhouses would be better?
they could have walls to keep the rain out
but, have a type of skylight
to direct the suns rays to the plants (maybe use mirrors?)
Anonymous Coward
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United States
07/07/2014 10:48 AM
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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
Awesome! I want to do an aquaponics system so bad........
Sungaze_At_Dawn

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Canada
07/07/2014 10:50 AM

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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
Wonderful work.

I am envisioning doing it slowly, because we want to put up a greenhouse in a certain place on our property, aquaponics system.

Also there is plenty of wind, blows over signs and smaller things, so it that one spot behind our neighbors welding shop is a good place.

But thinking of doing it dome style not tunnel style, and creating, over time, double layers of landscaping plastic in triangles.

Then, in the end when its all set up, putting another layer inside with small fans in between.

We have alot of wind, and even some sun in the winter so powering for a small amount of heat Dec-Feb, because the average here is -6, but lots of fluxations, we had -17 for those cold spells.

Was thinking of catfish and another others with them, and even crayfish and shrimp in the bottom.

Lots of spinach and beets, sweet potatoes, swiss chard, and salad ingredients, and new potatoes all non gmo.
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Anonymous Coward
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07/07/2014 10:54 AM
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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
i'm in mass and the winds from the storm the day BEFORE arthur destroyed my neighbor's green house. (his was plastic)

i've seen so many destroyed green houses in mass.

especially glass ones.

but i don't see why kansas wouldn't be just as stormy or stormier.

not much you can do about a micro burst, i think one came through here.
 Quoting: queenbee 1562977


i wonder if underground/ glass roof
greenhouses would be better?
they could have walls to keep the rain out
but, have a type of skylight
to direct the suns rays to the plants (maybe use mirrors?)
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 56144605


Trust me, nothing would have kept that rain out! We ALL suffered water-damage even in "dry" basements. We had 10 inches in one afternoon!

We were very lucky with no wind-damage this time, though! For that, we are grateful!
Anonymous Coward
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United States
07/07/2014 10:56 AM
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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
what if you had a cistern
and let the fish live in it?
and then use the fish droppings
to fertilize plants growing above ground?
Bizarre Verewolf

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07/07/2014 11:23 AM
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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
That is AMAZING OP!

clappa


I have been wanting to have a way of eating fresh fish, and grow more tropical fruits, this would be perfect!

When I am able both physically and financially I will definitely give this a go. Thank you so much for sharing! hf Five stars!
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Lil Sis

User ID: 59541918
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07/07/2014 11:35 AM
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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
i'm in mass and the winds from the storm the day BEFORE arthur destroyed my neighbor's green house. (his was plastic)

i've seen so many destroyed green houses in mass.

especially glass ones.

but i don't see why kansas wouldn't be just as stormy or stormier.

not much you can do about a micro burst, i think one came through here.
 Quoting: queenbee 1562977


What I learned from working with plastic structures is that you must prevent them from billowing or flapping in the wind. I restrain the movement of our greenhouses by lashing them with cord crisscrossed over the top from side to side. We get some fairly high winds here, 30-45 gusts now and then, and they hold firm. You have to anchor your ropes well tho. I don't think this would be effective for glass.
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Anonymous Coward
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United States
07/07/2014 12:02 PM
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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
Pray

your government does not go total fascist -commie and makes home gardening totally illegal
Anonymous Coward (OP)
User ID: 57472949
United States
07/07/2014 04:09 PM
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Re: How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
Thank you everyone for all the nice comments!





GLP